Hello Jon, here is hoping that the next months are more settled for you and
your family, fancy little Charlie now crawling, where has that time gone?
It’s nice to read of all you are intending to cook on that wonderful grill
regards delicious foods, I really look forward to hearing about what you make.
Yes, similar here life has been really busy with all sorts of family things,
over previous months so many of them have had Covid and some quite unwell, so
I’ve been busy making some meals to ferry across And place on the front
Veranda, seat and then we go outside the front fence and have a conversation
with family across the lawn! I haven’t been catching up with many posts at
all, hopefully I’ll catch up with a few as time goes on.
Regarding the way of cooking rice you mention, I’ve never tried that before,
but will give it a go next time I am cooking rice. We have been enjoying using
black rice, this is not a recipe really, and maybe others have already tried
it, but we enjoyed a really nice black rice salad this evening, cooked black
rice that had been rinsed and then dressed with a vinaigrette dressing that
had made mustard mixed through, some sugar, salt and black pepper and just a
pinch of chilli powder. This was served with rocket leaves, not sure what they
are called in the United States, and quartered boiled eggs. It turned out to be
a favourite salad and I’ll make it again. The mustard and rocket being strong
flavours seem to go really well with the black rice. Also the mustard we used
is one I purchased from Queensland, from the tropics, it is mustard laced with
pineapple, ginger and chilli and it’s so good.
Hope everyone on the list is doing okay.
Valerie
Sent from my iPhone
On 10 Jun 2022, at 9:52 am, Jon Rawlings <twosocks76@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device
Hi list.
Sorry I have been absent from the list for a while. This past month has been
insane! Starting with the weekend of Mother's Day, here in the United States,
things just went crazy. Not only was their Mother's Day, Emily's birthday,
and Heather's birthday all in the same week, but we also had a special
religious event for Heather that Saturday, and my in-laws were here for six
days. Also at the same time, little Charlie has been teething badly, making
my day is rather difficult. As if that wasn't bad enough, a nasty cold sweat
through our family starting about the third week of May, just before Memorial
Day. I had all kinds of grandiose plans to fire up Smokey Bear, the name I
have designated for my massive new charcoal grill, cooking some chicken
drumsticks on it, and inviting a family or two to join us that day for a good
old-fashioned barbecue. It didn't happen, because I was the one who was sick.
And for some reason, now with Charlie crawling, my life has suddenly become
even more complicated but, he's a trooper, at a cutie, and with the summer
heat coming on here in Vegas, we have been locked inside long enough that we
are all just about going nuts. We are looking forward to a trip to my mom's
house on Saturday for some swimming and quite possibly a little picnic on the
back lawn. As a result of all this, I have not been checking my email very
often. I miss being able to use email on my PC, as opposed to my cell phone.
But I find Windows Live Mail to be a very unstable and unreliable program for
an email client. On that note, I'm open to suggestion that do not involve
Google Mail or any of the web-based email site.
As far as food goes, I have been having a lot of fun. When my father-in-law
was here, he taught me how to make rice perfectly every time using something
called the pasta method. Essentially, you cook your rice in about four or
five times the amount of water that you are using for rice, cook it for about
15 minutes on a gentle simmer, drain the rice, then put it back into the pot
got it cooked in, with the lid securely in place, and let it stand for about
five more minutes. I have to admit, my rice has been just about perfect every
time I do it, but the key is to let the rice drain thoroughly before putting
it back into the pot again. As far as actual recipes I have made lately, I
tried one last Saturday 4 noodles with a lot of chicken and asparagus in it,
that was dressed with a delicious Sesame peanut sauce. It was pretty easy to
put together, and Emily loved it so much that she requested that I put it
back on the next menu again. I am trying to simplify my menus, or at least
that's what I tell myself when I plan the menu, but I'm not doing very well
at it. I need to use the oven a whole lot less with this heat. I am going to
try using Smokey Bear, on the next menu cycle, to do our cast iron pizzas.
This Grill is wonderful because I can set the temperature to exactly what I
want it to be, and the grill automatically takes care of the rest. Yet it
uses charcoal, not pellets. We can still make our pizzas and summer without
heating up the house. Anyway, I'm trying to go through all of my emails and
get caught up, but it's going to take me a couple of days. Right now I am
stealing time away from the baby, and it is obvious he wants me to feed him
something solid. Just wanted to let you all know I'm still here, and I'm
still giving some serious thought to moving the list to another server. But
one thing at a time.
Jon
